Real Estate

America's Most Livable Cities

Looking to for a better way of life? Start your search with these places.

The beer at Gritty McDuff's might be enough to lure people to Portland, Me. Established in 1988, the downtown pub offers a smattering of small-batch ales brewed on the premises in addition to usual tavern treats. From the patio, customers can enjoy a pint along cobblestone streets or retire to the copper-topped bar for a second round.

Tasty microbrews aren't the only reason to like Portland. Thanks to high marks in five key quality of life metrics, Portland tops this year's list of America's Most Livable Cities.

Perrin, who has lived in Maine for 20 years, is one of 513,000 residents living the good life in the
Portland
metropolitan area. The region earned high marks for income growth and culture; it also has low levels of crime and unemployment. Residents can afford the relatively high cost of living because of a 6.3% income growth rate over the past five years.

Behind the Numbers
To form our list, we looked at quality of life measures in the nation's largest continental U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We eliminated areas with populations smaller than 500,000 and assigned points to the remaining metro regions across five data sets: Five-year income growth per household and cost of living from Moody's Economy.com, crime data and leisure index from Sperling's Best Places, and annual unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Modesto, Calif., ranks as the worst metro area with more than 500,000 residents. This crime-wracked enclave in the Central Valley demands the same moderately high cost of living as Portland with a third of the job growth and nearly three times the unemployment. Modesto ranked fifth on our roundup of the nation's
most miserable cities
earlier this year.

Denver, Colo., No. 11 on the list, ranks in part for its culture rank (19 of 379) and 4.4% income growth (77 of 379). The crime rating of
Cambridge, Mass.' crime rating (29 of 379) helped it to No. 7 on our list. And though
Little Rock, Ark., landed at 15, it boasts a 6% income growth rate (18 of 379) and a 5.4% unemployment rate (59 of 379.)

To be sure, Portland isn't perfect either. Its 5.9% unemployment rate is much lower than Modesto's, but it's still double its 2007 unemployment rate of 3.7%.

"There are less jobs to go around, but our main industry of tourism hasn't been affected much," says Perrin. "People are still coming to Portland."

Residents remain optimistic that their easy-living city will retain its desirability.

"Portland draws so many people because it has a strong arts, cultural, contemporary music and foodie scene," says Janis Beitzer, executive director of Portland's Downtown District. "It's a place where people set their own pace of life and work."